Let's Talk About

NL Team Four months after Chandrayaan-3 successfully landed on the moon, Newslaundry dives into the tricky questions that lie behind it. What are the benefits of a moon mission? Do we need a space programme at all? What does it take to run the Indian Space Research Organisation? Welcome to Let’s Talk About: ISRO and Chandrayaan, where host Abhinandan Sekhri sits down with EK Kutty, former director...

शराफत की दुनिया का किस्सा ही खत्म, अब जैसी दुनिया वैसे हम… फिल्म जज्बा के इस आमफहम डायलॉग को इरफान ने जिस कविताई के साथ अदा किया वह करोड़ों हिंदुस्तानियों के दिलों में उतर गया. लगभग इसी बहते हुए अविकल झरने की तरह अपनी अदायगी से इरफान हम हिंदुस्तानियों की दुनिया का हिस्सा बने थे. फिर  29 अप्रैल 2020 को अचानक वो हमारी इस दुनिया से अलग हो गए.  यह सिर्फ इरफान के परिजनों, दोस्तों, रिश्तेदारों...

With Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s retirement and LK Advani’s poll rout, the 2014 Lok Sabha election paved the way for a new power duo to take over the BJP. It was after the RSS greenlighted Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi as a prime ministerial candidate. Welcome to the final episode of Let’s Talk About: BJP , which focuses on the ascendance of Modi, and his journey from a Sangh pracharak to Raisin...

In the 90s and 00s, the BJP emerged as a pole in the coalition era as Atal Bihari Vajpayee forged new partnerships in power. However, as prime minister, his own jugalbandi with LK Advani saw fault lines. These were years of a series of minority governments – a trend only reversed by Narendra Modi’s decisive victory in 2014. Welcome to the third episode of Let’s Talk About: BJP , which takes us thr...

In the sociopolitical landscape of the ’80s and ’90s, the BJP found itself at a crossroads, trying hard to consolidate its support base while navigating between Gandhian socialism and Hindu nationalism under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani. Welcome to the second episode of Let’s Talk About: BJP , which looks at events that helped the party recast itself within the Indian polit...

The Bharatiya Janata Party is today the most dominant political force in India, with two consecutive landslide victories in the Lok Sabha and a march to power in several states.  But what’s the backstory behind the BJP’s enduring rise, and who are the faces who cemented its formidable organisation? Welcome to the first episode of Let’s Talk About: BJP, a series tracing the BJP’s origins, and...

सच्चिदानंद हीरानंद वातस्यायन अज्ञेय. जितना भारी भरकम नाम, उतना ही भारी भरकम व्यक्तित्व. अज्ञेय का जिक्र आने पर एक मूर्धन्य कवि, शैलीकार, कथा साहित्य को एक महत्त्वपूर्ण मोड़ देने वाले कथाकार, निबन्धकार, दिग्गज सम्पादक की छवि हमारे सामने आती है. लेकिन अज्ञेय का व्यक्तित्व इससे भी विराट और बहुआयामी था. अज्ञेय की लेखकीय पहचान से अलग उनका विद्रोही अतीत, क्रांतिकारी झुकाव, उनका सैन्य अतीत, उनका राजनीतिक...

Lets Talk About the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is our three-part deep-dive podcast into the RSS and how it became the formidable force that it is. This live session is in conversation with Abhinandan Sekhri, Shardool Katyayan, and Vijai Trivedi. Tune into Let's Talk About the RSS here: https://www.newslaundry.com/podcast/lets-talk-about/lets-talk-about-rss Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy f...

In the third and final episode of this series , we pick up from where we left off – the blossoming of the RSS under its third chief, Balasaheb Deoras. Moving through the JP movement to the Emergency to the birth of the Janata Party, this episode tracks the role of the RSS across epochal moments in India’s history.  From Deoras to Rajendra Singh to KS Sudarshan to Mohan Bhagwat, the episode mo...

In episode 1 of this three-part series, we left off in 1947. After the horrors of Partition, political leaders across the spectrum were battling disenchantment among their followers. The RSS was no exception, but its work during Partition stood it in good stead.  Then came the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, and the goodwill generated by the RSS came crumbling down. How did the RSS pick itse...

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the fount of Hindutva, is arguably the most powerful and influential organisation in India. It's three years from turning 100 and its influence permeates all spheres, from politics to society. But how did this behemoth come to be, and where is it likely to go? Welcome to episode 1 of Let’s Talk About: RSS, hosted by Abhinandan Sekhri and Shardool Katyayan. In this...

Check out Part 1 of the conversation here . In part two of this special edition of Let’s Talk About, the Newslaundry team of Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Manisha Pande, Anand Vardhan, Shardool Katyayan, and Mehraj D Lone continue their conversation on religion, this time focusing on the intersection of religion and politics. Abhinandan asks the panel whether it thinks mixing religion and polit...

In this special edition of Let’s Talk About, the Newslaundry crew of Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Manisha Pande, Anand Vardhan, Shardool Katyayan, and Mehraj D Lone sit down for a freewheeling discussion about religion, its place and significance in our world. Primarily, the theme is whether religion has done more good or more harm.  Abhinandan and Mehraj both argue that religion has done...

Feminism as a social, political and historical phenomenon has assumed many shapes and forms through the ages. But what does feminism mean in the Indian context? Can we chart out a linear history of the movement in India?  India’s movement has its own complexities, varying in definition and scope across class, caste, and creed. Gender dynamics and power imbalances have been instrumental in the...

When a standard or classification is built on an idea of “normal”, then the decision-making system will fail those outside that idea. It will fail the extraordinary. It’s similar to what happened in the case of athlete Dutee Chand, who went on to win a landmark case that declared void the sporting standard of testosterone levels.  After all, nature is not neat. And it’s the outliers that push...

Being perfectly rational is not an evolutionarily viable form of reasoning. It’s slow and requires a lot of information that may not always be available. What helps is reasoning through bias: a cognitive shortcut that is quick, doesn’t require perfect information, gets the job done, and reduces the kind of errors that have existential consequences. Algorithms have biases too. But over time, biases...

The right to privacy is our right to identity. And as human experience has evolved over time, privacy has changed with it. In this episode, we discuss with Arvind Narrain, cofounder of the Alternative Law Forum, how our understanding of privacy has evolved over time. We talk to Rega Jha about how the internet subverts our privacy without even intending to. We also speak to Rishabh Poddar, who is b...

The genius of the metaphor is that it helps us understand complex models we can’t articulate. When the Hindu supremacists say “Bharat Mata”, for example, they are presenting a well understood cognitive model that explains nourishment and loyalty and using it to explain nationalism. When they say “Gau Mata”, the idea of nourishment and our loyalty to it is brought to the cow. In many ways the metap...

On July 12, 2020, a team from the National Investigation Agency and the Pune police landed at Sadiya Shaikh’s doorstep. Sadiya, 22, was arrested on suspicion of being in contact with “ISIS sympathisers” and helping to plan attacks in India. It wasn't her first interaction with the police; she had been “deradicalised” at the age of 17.  By 2017, ISIS had lost most, if not all, of its territory...

When I began researching for this, the pilot episode, it was immediately apparent to me that Big Data was fundamentally different from data as we have known it for hundreds of years. We could just do so much more with it. It was changing industries, governments, people, and relationships between these entities rapidly and permanently. But what I couldn’t get a finger on was why.  Why was Big...

It is estimated that a child goes missing in India every eight minutes. That’s one full classroom of students disappearing every few hours. Almost 40% of these children are never found. Families are torn apart. Tune into this snippet of Let’s Talk About where Newslaundry ’s Snigdha Sharma delves into the complexities of child trafficking in India: how and why is it so prevalent? What forms does it...

In May 2017, a PIL in India’s Supreme Court kickstarted a hot debate on one of the most controversial practices in the 21st century—female genital mutilation (FGM). Described by activists as a "heinous crime" and "cruelty of the first order", the case stretched over several months and drew attention to a practice that has remained one of the most guarded secrets in the subcontinent and around the...

Brigadier BK Ponwar, the Director of the Counter Terrorism and Jungle Warfare College in Chhattisgarh, compares the Naxal insurgency to fish in a pond. He explains this analogy by giving examples from insurgencies in other parts of India, particularly the Northeast. Amit Bhardwaj also questions him about the alleged incidents of sexual assault by security forces on civilians. Tune in to this snipp...

In 1968, Narayan Singh Chauhan joined an uprising that was painting Indian jungles red. Joined by comrades from different parts of the country, he was there to fight feudal lords, emancipate the peasants and crush the state. In his three year-long involvement with the Naxalite insurgency, Chauhan was involved in multiple encounters and also admits to killing a revenue-collector. Tune in to this sn...

The word 'objectivity' has garnered increasing usage in the world of journalism in recent years. Yet, its meaning remains elusive to many. For some, it represents a method that must be followed by those who claim to present the truth to the wider world, while for others, it's a mental skill that allows for impartial and balanced judgment. Speaking to several prominent journalists and writers, Abhi...